Ciwan Haco

About Ciwan Haco

Ciwan Haco is a Kurdish singer from Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava) and one of the first artists to fuse Kurmanji folk song with Western pop, rock, blues and jazz. He was born on 17 August 1957 in Tirbespî, near Qamishli, into a family whose roots lie in the Midyat area of Mardin Province in Turkey. As a young man he was influenced by the great singer Mihemed Şêxo and learned the saz, and he was making his first recordings and giving concerts while still in his teens.

After high school he moved to Germany and studied musicology at Ruhr University Bochum, and he has since lived in Europe, settling in Sweden. His 1983 album Gula Sor remains his best-known record, and later albums such as Leyla, Dûrî, Bilûra Min, Na Na and Off kept him at the centre of modern Kurmanji music for decades. He often sets poems by Cegerxwîn and Qedrîcan to music.

His lyrics are usually simple and centred on love, carried by a warm voice and full band arrangements. In 2003 he received permission to perform in Batman in southeastern Turkey, and the open-air concert drew a crowd reported at more than 200,000; it was later released as a live recording. In 2012 he recorded the duet Esmer with the Turkish singer Hülya Avşar. He is living and is regarded as one of the most influential Kurdish singers of the past half-century.

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